Possibly, but it doesn't state how much one acutally learns, other than: "You will also benefit slightly". Perhaps this percentage could be increased to encourage interaction with newer players?

When you teach, your skills go up a small percentage. So as an example (note - not actual ratio numbers) if you teach 15 lessons, your skill in that would go up 1 lesson. As you get higher in your skills that ratio gets further, 15:1 becomes more like 100:1. It can take a very long time if you are fairly high in skills to see a change from teaching them.

I would just be happy that it gave you a message or something to let you know it was happening.

So, is it a bad thing if moments before that post was made, I was casually mentioning a new use for Nihilist novices. Namely as sacrificial victims before raids and raid defense. You know, to please the Demon Lords and Gods to insure victory in the coming battle!

I teach any novice who asks for help, if there guild didnt greet em I usually try and keep an eye on em, sometimes I'll sit at the portal and greet them. If I hear nobody greeted them in their guild I will either track down someone to teach em or I'll teach them a few basic things, (I have taught at least 1 novice from every guild by now except shadowdancers and blacktalon since I became rogue) I will get one or two every few days when this happens. I've had an alt in every guild to just test out how each guild handles novices because I was curious. One or two guilds I got directed to a self teaching scrolls, and that really turned me off to the guild, especially when I saw 2 or 3 undersecretaries around, but a few really made me feel welcome with there teaching and a few I just felt they were throwing me in newton after I learned some skills. This was a while ago though. I was thinking about interviewing some novices about how they were taught if they were willing.

I have joined a warrior guild once, with two or three officials (the champ among them) and was there for about half an hour without anyone's help while activley asking for it.

So I went newbie kicking

Heh, well if you make it a fun RP experience and don't just kill them and hang them out to dry (but rather have someone walk them through resurrection or whatnot, maybe give them some compensation), there's nothing wrong with that! In fact, I can see some novices really getting into that and talking about their experience fondly in later years! (Just don't force them, but ask for a brave volunteer.)

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating throwing out any guild's RP and cuddling newbies, just being aware of your novices and answering basic questions when they need it. You don't have to spend hours on them, but you don't have to ignore them either.

After you going to fatten them up with your greasy meals?

Quoted for truth. There's quite a difference between being capable of kicking/punching your way in Newton without a problem and actually enjoying and benefiting as much as possible from the time spent there.

I very much agree with the need to compress information and present it concisely in as short a length of time as possible. Unless a novice is very interested and involved and asking more, I tend/ed to finish their initial training in about a half hour: that included all their required lessons, basic instruction on some of the more important/useful of the abilities they'd've learned in that, pointing out the more important things to read (including rules so they don't get into trouble), instruct how to ask questions at any point and encourage them to do so, recommended to explore/read/hunt in Newton (with both the Portals way and the walking way how to get there), and a brief note of what to expect in the future (Moondancers try to catch novices again before they graduate for a follow-up "graduation preparation talk" to check how they've been doing, make sure they've learned a few things (educating them if they haven't yet), etc. once they've gotten some time under their belt to absorb everything.

One of the hardest parts of IRE games is the initial learning curve before you're really capable of doing much. (AB files help a lot for syntax, which rarely seems intuitive, and explanations but at least half the novices I've trained, even newbies who'd gone through the tutorial, had to be guided to look at it.) Letting a newbie run off to Newton right away doesn't help them do anything other than do what they think they want to do without knowing why. (Those are the same ones who'll get there and wonder what to do, or immediately start trying to kill things and die, or try to swim when they can't and die, or wander off elsewhere and reject innocence to attack something they shouldn't and get enemied and die. All are recipes for frustration that don't as easily lead to long-term players as having a half hour or so guild intro and learning things to help them.) For one, part of being a novice, a freshman novice especially, is being able to make certain that the guild you've chosen really fits what you want to do, so if it doesn't you can leave and choose something else without suffering a lesson penalty. If they're not learning those lessons or practicing any of the abilities, how can they know if they like them? Moondancers especially, if our novices don't learn a bit of Planar and they try asking a question on GNT someone keeping watch or working up on Ethereal won't even hear them, much less be able to answer.

I think I've been rambling a bit, maybe.

I recall that if someone doesn't register, they keep getting reminders to do so, but I don't remember what those said and we still get confused people, not many but more than you'd think, who don't understand what happened and where their character went. Maybe if a line was added to the reminder saying that if you don't register your character will be deleted after a day or two of inactivity?

It's also sad that the newbies who most definitely need the tutorial are the ones most likely to skip it, thinking they don't need it. I think I've heard that the guides can bump them back in if they ask, which is great if there's a guide around to do so. If possible, it might be helpful if the newbies themselves could go into the tutorial, if they hadn't already done so and are still under level ... 21?

My viewpoint:

Here's the rub, I feel like the reason we have a poor newbie system is that it is so relient on volunteer players. Even the guides get paid poor pitance for the teaching effort they put in. Afterall, this is a game, and very few people like to flat out teach someone a game rather than do something more character constructive.

There are little to no short term gains and often minimal long term advantages as well from teaching novices in IRE games. In gaming you often have no idea if you'll be into a game a week or two later, so why waste your time with something that provides no tangible or substantial personal bonus.

Echoing the real world, people who think about teaching other new players utter the "what's the point?" sentiment and don't bother. Those who do bother, do it because they love it. I really feel that either the novice peace pipe needs to be moved more to the administrative and code side of the game, or that tangible and mechanical rewards need to be put into the game. How you would do the latter without administrative oversight escapes me. The former would be much easier, giving people a tool tip (configurable) function which echoed tips based on the situation they were in or command entered.

This has been a continually mentioned and unfixed problem over the past 5 or so years I've played IRE.

Only time I've noticed it was once that I taught Wicca to someone who'd just graduated. I just had Mother (at Fabled). Taught them from Master all the way up and got 1% I think that let them get Fabled as well. Of course, that might've also been including tiny bits from all the other teaching of Nature/Wicca I'd done before that, too.

I won't disagree with you (except I do think the guides are adequately compensated). I am hoping though that we can drive the point through that if there is a novice asking for help in your guild, not to ignore him or her. Maybe even if it's just pointing them to a guide or someone in your city who enjoys teaching novices!

As for the admin side, I am thinking about implementing a more intuitive "hint" system for the more obvious questions players have. Want to help? Help me narrow down the top 10 questions in the Newbie Guide thread!

I did.. I think my e-mail got lost or something.

I believe it was changed a while ago so that newbies can be heard speaking on gnt from any plane, and newbie is a game-wide channel that is also unrestricted by planes.

edit: Which you are and I just cant read!

Fate Guides scare me... I'll just wander the Basin and trust that sometime I'll help a novice

I saw Skein and Bobbins I think it was having a 'love affair' once, which really amused me, Skein cheating on Spindle. Previously I had thought they were emotionless NPCs so that was fun. Yet akward.

I've thought about being homeless, and RPing my character for the sole purpose of helping newbies I stalk on the road. Maybe all rogues can be fate guides

I'd like to think this had a lot to do with the general afking that goes on with a lot of the knowledgable players rather than complete apathy. A lot of times players are simply not engaged (and if they are, they might be too busy to help novices) and paying too much attention. Largely this is due to two things: 1) Defenses with costs associated with them 2) Logging (buffer or text files) purposes. Perhaps removing the idling ability of players would decrease the negative sentiment (this goes a long way in shaping the future of a player) that players are around but not helping. For example: What if players could no longer set their timeout, but would rather timeout (d/ced) at a set time, such as 5 minutes, but keep their defenses, while timedout for 30 minutes. I think this would be reasonable if it is even possible under the code base.

Players would be able to log game plots and conversations still, they'd just have to pay attention and do productive things such as helping stranded novices.

Thats two!

From watching 3 guilds, and I don't mean to cast a bad light on any of them because I do think they do a good job for the most part, what I see is one of two things. People saying "Is anyone going to help the new novice", and then discussing it for 10 -15 minutes instead of just jumping in and helping. Or people who turn novice intro's into far longer things than necessary. 20 minutes to 30 minutes is ok for a novice intro. A lot of times when a new player comes to a game they are "testing the waters" and if they are sitting there for over an hour listening to a novice aide drone on, they get bored fast because they are not doing anything and they are more likely to not come back.
Teach them what they need and let them go play in Newton.